


turn me to gold in the sunlight

by aban_ataashi



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27360349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aban_ataashi/pseuds/aban_ataashi
Summary: this is a giftit comes with a price
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	turn me to gold in the sunlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Orime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orime/gifts).



Waidwen doesn’t know why Eothas chose him to bear the light. No matter what the god says, there surely must be others better suited to the role. Others who are devoted, educated, pious. Others who are full of mercy and compassion and faith. Others who are everything Waidwen is not.

And yet, Eothas chose him. And against all odds, Waidwen let himself be chosen. He agreed to walk this path, to carry the holy banner, to lead the righteous charge.

It’s not a life he ever imagined for himself, nor one he wanted. But it’s a chance- a chance for change, for something better, for something _more._ That is the reason- or at least the truest reason he can think of- for why, when Eothas offers him the torch, he takes it with both hands and lets the light consume him.

Waidwen doesn’t know what will come of all this. Even now, as his followers look to him- their saint, their king, their connection to the divine- he fears they look for answers he cannot give.

But the line shines through the fear. That, Waidwen thinks, is Eothas’s true gift. Not certainty, but hope. The idea that together, he and Eothas just might be making things better. For a man who is far more familiar with doubt, the idea is unfamiliar- but not unwelcome. For the first time in a long while, he has a connection that feels stronger than his many uncertainties. He has Eothas. He has his people. He has a mission.

For the first time in recent memory, Waidwen has something that feels like hope.

Waidwen doesn’t remember the pain, when all is said and done. He remembers the bridge. The army. The heat. The light- so much light, filling his vision and overwhelming his senses. It was always light with Eothas, even at the end, and Waidwen didn’t even recognize it as something different, something _wrong,_ until it was too late.

But even after the realization sets in, he doesn’t register the pain. Only the blinding explosion of the Godhammer and of Eothas, enveloping him completely, until the light finally fades to darkness.


End file.
